Sony posts $852m profit: PS3, PC sales up

Sony got itself back in black with a $293m profit last quarter courtesy of improved PS3 and Bravia sales, and the good times continue: the company just posted a second-quarter profit of ¥68.7b ($852m). The Networked Products and Services division that encompasses PlayStation and VAIO was Sony's strongest performer, with revenue going up five percent to ¥369b ($4.6b) on top of 3.5m PS3 sales (a slight increase), a 40 percent increase in PS3 software sales to 35m units, and "significant hardware cost reductions." PC sales were up to 2.3m units from 1.4m units last year, and Bravia and digital camera sales also increased, to 4.9m and 6.2m units, respectively. Now for the bad news: PSP sales continued their precipitous decline, down 50 percent to 1.5m from 3.0m last year. By way of comparison, that's the same number of PS2s Sony shipped this past quarter -- maybe it's time to break out a totally new PlayStation Phone, eh, Sony?